Improvement in fluxes for puddling iron



UNITED STATES PATENT ()FFIcE.

J. BURNISH, ,J. TALBOT, AND T. W. YARDLEY, OF POTTSVILLE, PA.

IMPROVEMENT IN FLUXES FOR PUDDLING IRON.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 22,779, dated February 1, 1859.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that we, JOHN BURNISH, JAMES TALBOT, and THOMAS W. YARDLEY, all of Pottsville, in the county of Schuylkill and State of Pennsylvania,have invented a new and useful Improvement in the Manufacture of Iron;

and we do hereby declare the following to be a full, clear, and exact description of the same. Our invention consists in the use, as a flux during the process of puddling red short iron, of a composition of silicious sand, loam, alum-clay, lime, oxide of iron, and talcose rocks, in about the proportion described hereinafter, so that the iron may be deprived of its red-short quality and rendered available for many purposes from which its use has been hitherto excluded.

In order to enable others skilled in the manufacture of iron to practice or invention, we will now proceed to describe the manner in which it may be carried into effect.

We prepare a compound of the following substances: silicious sand, six pounds; loam, three pounds; alum-clay, three pounds; lime, four pounds; oxide of iron, six pounds; talcose rock, two pounds.

The pig-iron is thrown into the puddlingfurnace, as usual, and when it is about assuming the liquid state the above compound in the proportion of about forty-eight pounds to the ton of iron is added. The compound forms a flux which has an affinity forand causes the fusion of the earthy matter in the iron, and

this earthy matter unites with the'flux and becomes separated from the iron, which is so far deprived of its red-short. qualities as to form sound rails and bars possessing, when cold, the toughness of red-short iron, and when hot the ductility of cold-short iron.

It may be necessary to make a slight change in the proportions of the above ingredients, according to the extent to which the lime predominates in the ores. I

We do not claim the separate use as a flux of the substances herein mentioned, ora compound of any two or three of said substances; but

We claim and desire to secure by Letters Patent- Silicious sand, loam, alum-chi y, lime, oxide of iron, and talcose rocks, when used" collectively in, or nearlyin, the proportions herei u described as a flux in the process of paddling iron.

In testimony whereof we have signed our names to this specification in the presence of two subscribing witnesses.

' JOHN BURNISH.

JAMES TALBOT.

THOMAS W. YARDLEY.

Witnesses: SAMUEL J oNEs, JAMES SHAW. 

